“The trouble with Westerners is that they want to witness their own enlightenment.”

Ultimately, that is the definition of bravery: not being afraid of yourself.

We say that the sun is behind the clouds, but actually it is not the sun but the city from which we view it that is behind the clouds. If we realized that the sun is never behind the clouds we might have a different attitude toward the whole thing.

The emphasis on practice is because it is the only time in your life you can steer your karmic situation.

It’s no use trying to be different than you are.

Sit and do nothing. Every once in a while a golden fish swims by and lays her golden eggs. You’ll know.

You can’t feel the earth if you can’t feel the space.

Sanity lies somewhere between the inhibitions of conventional morality and the looseness of extreme impulse, but the area in-between is very fuzzy.

Developing confidence is like watching the sun rise. First it seems very feeble and one wonders whether it will make it. Then it shines and shines.

There is more to fearlessness than merely having overcome fear… This state of being is not dependent on any external circumstances. It is individual dignity… that comes from being what we are, right now.

The discovery of magic can happen only when we transcend our embarrassment about being alive, when we have the bravery to proclaim the goodness and dignity of human life, without either hesitation or arrogance. Then magic can descend onto our existence.

We are always in transition. If you can just relax with that, you’ll have no problem.

Spirituality doesn’t exist on another level different from ordinary life.

Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people because you no longer regard people as a drain on your energy.

Fundamentally, no one can help us. If we seek to relieve our loneliness, we will be distracted from the path. Instead, we must make a relationship with loneliness until it becomes aloneness.

Whatever shakes you should without delay, right away, be incorporated into the path.

Fearlessness comes from working with the softness of the human heart.

What you run away from owns you. You are the dog on a leash. The most you can do is to tug against the leash.

I don’t watch my own films. There is little time; I’d rather see another film.

Always before I had felt like a person, an individual, hopeful that I could mold my life according to some desire of my own.

And I even like my own company. But when I’m alone, it’s to read or write. I’m in my thoughts. Mostly I’m learning.

I don’t do films pre-prepared by other people, I don’t do star system. So I do my own little thing.

I think we foreshorten our own viewpoint if we consider any state of mind, or society, or government as final. Growth and change! We can’t get away from them.

The artist works by awareness of his own state of mind.

One must see the ideal in one’s own mind. It is like a memory – an awareness -of perfection.